"Momentary
shield breach, but the shield is up again," came the reply. "Direct
hits on both of the old generators. The port generator's been
destroyed, the
starboard one is damaged."

"Well, good
for them," murmured Piett. He could not restrain an evil grin. Keeping
the
no-longer-in-service generators in place, after all, had been his idea.
He
wished he could see the faces of the enemy when they realised that,
despite
their having destroyed the vulnerable shield generators, the Executor's deflector
shields were functioning perfectly.

Piett
commanded,
"return the compliment, gentlemen. Let's see if they've had the brains
to
move their shield
generators."

"Yes,
sir!"

As he had
ordered,
the Executor's fire had
been concentrated on their opponents' generators throughout
the course of this battle. The shields in that portion of their ships
had to be
badly weakened.

He was right.
In a
vivid burst of yellows and reds, the starboard generator on one of
their
enemies' command towers exploded. Its twin followed seconds after. A
cheer
sounded across the bridge of the Executor. "Continue
firing,"
said Piett.

The enemy's
shield
generators had clearly not been moved. Under the Executor's bombardment,
the
damaged ship was taking one hit after another.

There was only
one
route to take in such a situation, and the commander of the enemy Star
Destroyer took it. The ship veered away from the Executor's fire, and
jumped
into Hyperspace.

This left two
Star
Destroyers demanding the Executor's attention.
They were still
trying to get past the Super Star Destroyer, to fire on the station.
The Executor performed an
acrobatic lunge, almost flipping over completely in order to get back
into the enemy's
way. Piett thanked the gods for artificial gravity. He knew from
experience
that it didn't pay to think too hard about the ship's orientation at
times like
this; that was one sure way of making oneself sick.

Suddenly, the
two
Star Destroyers were under fire from another direction. On the
viewscreen of
the Executor, the Mircalla and its escort
of x-wings zoomed into view beyond the
enemy.

"Admiral,"
called an officer at the communications console, "message for you from
Captain Ifar."

Piett left the
central
walkway and crossed to the communications console. The orange face of
the Mon
Calamari captain that appeared on the monitor looked distinctly
jubilant; Piett
had been working with the Calamari long enough now to be able to tell
that.

"Admiral,"
Captain Ifar of the Mircalla said
cheerfully, "our opponent's jumped.
We had him so scared he couldn't even stick around to pick up all of
his
TIE-fighters. Mind if we join in, or do you want these two for
yourself?"

"No,
Captain," said Piett, "be my guest."

Unfortunately
for
Ifar's plans of entertainment, the Star Destroyers' commanders had
other ideas.
In close succession, the two of them swooped away from the Rebel ships,
and a
moment later both made the jump to Hyperspace and vanished.

There was
another
cheer. Through the link to Ifar, Piett could hear the cheers of the Mircalla's bridge crew
as
well as of his own.

Heavenly
gods, he thought. It
worked. It actually worked.

"Damage
report," Piett ordered, when the cheers had died down. He was trying
not
to look smug, though it was a major effort when he noticed the
wide-eyed stare
of Captain Griffith.

The damage
they'd
sustained had been minimal, little more beyond the annihilation of the
useless
former shield generators. As the report was concluding, another crewman
called
out, "Admiral, the moon station is lowering their shields and they're
hailing us." An instant later, the same man added, "there's a ship
leaving the station. A one-pilot fighter. It's not one of ours or the
Chandrilans'."

Piett frowned
out at
the tiny ship climbing away from the moon. "Contact the station," he
said. "Find out if that ship -- "

Before he could
finish his sentence, the ship was gone.

"It's jumped,
sir," came the dispirited and obvious report.

Piett's scowl
grew
darker. It could, he knew, have merely been one of the treaty
delegates,
panicked and decamping as soon as possible. But something felt wrong.

He had a very,
very
bad feeling about this.

Han Solo could
not
get to sleep.

He was sprawled
out
over the double bed. He knew that, theoretically, he ought to be
sleeping just
great. The whole bed to himself, room to move around, no Leia to do her
usual
trick of wrapping herself up in ninety-nine percent of the covers,
leaving him
with one square inch of sheet if he was lucky. But, such logical
considerations
aside, he still wasn't sleeping.

He had his face
buried in Leia's pillow, but the bedclothes had been changed that
morning, so
there wasn't even a wisp of scent to remind him of her. That damned
officious
C3PO fancied himself as Leia and Han's housekeeper, and insisted on an
obsessional level of cleanliness. Now, Han figured he liked clean
sheets as
much as the next guy; he'd slept in enough manky beds over the years to
appreciate the change. But C3PO changing the sheets as a daily morning
ritual,
Han thought, was going a bit far. So was the twice daily -- twice, mind you --
visit
from the vacuum droid, and Threepio's perpetual dusting of any flat
surface.
There wasn't enough dust in the universe to justify the amount of
cleaning C3PO
imposed on their quarters.

Unfortunately,
Leia
and Luke both liked the miserable prig. If it weren't for that, Han
thought he
would have blasted old Goldenrod years ago. He nearly had done, the day
he
found Threepio folding -- no, refolding -- his
shirts. Han had
walked in at that moment, and it had taken all of Leia's peace-making
skills to
stop him from incinerating their self-proclaimed housekeeper right then
and
there. Threepio was lucky it had just been shirts. If the droid had
gotten into
Han's underwear drawer, even Leia might not have been able to save him.
So now
C3PO was under the strictest of commands not to touch any of Han's
belongings,
under any circumstances. So far the restriction seemed to have been
obeyed;
Threepio had a pretty healthy fear of Han Solo's temper.

Han sighed. He
wasn't so far gone as to wander around the room sticking his nose into
Leia's
perfume bottles, or to take a package of her shampoo to bed with him so
he
could periodically sniff it and fantasise her presence. But he still
wished she
were here.

He wanted to
talk
with her. Specifically, he wanted to talk about babies.

It was crazy
how
fast one's viewpoint could change. When she'd told him, three days ago,
he'd
been pretty thoroughly horrified. All he could think of was the bad
aspects,
all the drawbacks. Maybe when he was fully awake, he'd be scared to
death
again. But now, lulled by being only half conscious, the cuddly and
cosy
aspects of parenthood were uppermost in his thoughts. Only three days
since he'd
found out he was going to be a father, and already he was having
visions of
cute little knitted caps and baby shoes. Mind you, he didn't know who
he
thought was going to be doing the knitting. Chewbacca? Wedge Antilles?
Nahh,
more likely it'd be C3PO. Goldenrod was probably proficient in over six
million
different forms of knitting from cultures across the galaxy.

His imagination
balked at the idea of matching outfits for the twins. No, he was going
to put
his foot down about that. He'd always thought it was hideous to make
poor
little brats wear identical outfits, and had wondered whether the
parents of
twins were all irredeemably tacky. Well, now he guessed he'd find out
if
tackiness went with the territory. Still, though, thinking of
sickeningly cute
baby clothes, an image had just sprung into his mind of two little
round-faced
babies dressed in miniature x-wing pilot's flightsuits. No, no, it was
horrible. It was funny, though, he had to admit. It was something he'd
like to
see. He wondered whether Leia would go for it.

An electronic
bleeping caused him to start, driving all visions of baby clothes from
his
mind. He groaned, blinking blearily at the communications panel next to
Leia's
dressing table. To his astonishment, the pristine, elegant visage of
Mon Mothma
appeared on the screen. The Head of State looked worried, but then, she
usually
did. She said, "General Solo, I must speak with you urgently. Please
respond."

Confusion and
fear
surged up in Han in equal measures. Leia! Something had
happened to
her. Or to the babies. There was no other reason for Mon Mothma to call
him up
in the middle of the night.

He lurched out
of
bed, and pressed the button which would inform Mon Mothma that her
message had
been received and a channel would be opened momentarily. His fear had
not quite
made him forget that he needed to find some clothes.

Han switched on
the
lights. He looked around the room, but of course the enforced tidiness
meant
that there was no clothing lying readily to hand. He stumbled across
the room
to his closet, opened it up and rummaged around in the back of it for
the
maroon robe that he knew was lying crumpled under several pairs of
boots and
the clothes that had fallen off their hangers. He hated that robe.
Wearing it,
all he needed was a pot belly and a pipe and he would have turned into
his
father. But of course, he couldn't throw it away, since Leia had given
it to
him. He pulled the wretched thing out of the closet, sending one boot
flying
across the room as he did so.

Fastening the
robe
as securely about himself as possible, he hurried back across the room
and
opened the communications channel.

Well,
fine, he thought. If
that's the way you feel about it, next time you call in the middle of
the night
you can have a free showing of Han Solo in the Buff. But Mon Mothma
was
hurrying on.

"General, I'm
afraid I have bad news for you. Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker have
disappeared."

He stared at
her.
"What?"

"The
indications
are that they have been kidnapped from the moon station. Commander
Pellar and
two of the station's security personnel have been killed. Pellar was
last seen
leaving the Control Centre to look for Skywalker, and Leia was observed
leaving
the Centre with the security guards shortly after that. We're still
having the
station searched, but I think it's very unlikely that we'll find them.
An
unknown ship left the station just after the shields were lowered,
without
receiving clearance. It looks like we'll have to assume Leia and Luke
were
aboard."

"Whoa, wait a
minute," said Han. "Why were the shields up?"

Mon Mothma
sighed.
"The station was attacked by four Star Destroyers. The attack was
fought
off. Luke and Leia seem to have been captured while the battle was
still going
on."

Han was feeling
numb. He couldn't seem to take all this in. He asked, "the ship jumped
to
Hyperspace?"

"Yes. We're
calculating its possible destinations based on the trajectory, but ... "

Yeah. He knew.
She
didn't have to finish that particular sentence. That technique was just
about
as good as useless, even if the ship in question didn't just jump to
another
location, on a totally different trajectory, as soon as it was out of
tracking
range.

He couldn't
believe
this. How did things like this keep happening to the Skywalker family?
How did
they keep happening to him?

"Yeah,"
he said dully. "I understand." He went on, with more force, "I'm
coming to Chandrila Seven. I want to check it out for myself, see what
I can
find out. I'll be there tonight."

Mon Mothma
looked
like she wanted to object, but she held the words back. "All right,
General," she said gently. "I'll see you in a few hours."

Han reached out
and
switched off the transmission.

He wasn't going
to
allow himself time to be scared. He pulled off the damned bathrobe and
flung it
in a heap on the floor, just to piss C3PO off, then stalked over to the
bureau.

He was fully
dressed, except for his socks and boots, when the door entry bell
summoned his
attention.

Gods, he was a
popular guy tonight.

Boots and socks
in
one hand, he stormed over to the door and slammed his other hand
against the
intercom button. "Yeah? Who is it?" he snapped.

The reply came
back, "Vader."

Han had the
distinct feeling that somewhere along the line -- probably, on the day
he had
contracted to fly Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi to Alderaan -- he had
lost
control of his life. In fact, it didn't feel like his life at all
anymore. It
was definitely someone else, not Han Solo, who'd been dragged out of
bed by the
leader of the Rebel Alliance to be informed that his girlfriend had
been
kidnapped, and who now had the Dark Lord of the Sith hanging out on his
doorstep.

Han opened the
door. He walked back to the bed, sat down and started putting on his
socks as
Darth Vader stepped into the room.

"You've heard
from Mon Mothma?" Vader asked.

"Yeah."

"How soon can
the Millennium Falcon be ready for
take-off?"

"Uh,
immediately, I guess. As soon as I wake up Chewie. Why, you want me to
take you
to Chandrila Seven?"

"No,"
said Vader. "To Coruscant."

Han froze in
the
process of tugging on one of his boots. He stared at Vader.
"Coruscant!"

"Yes. I
believe Luke and Leia have been taken there."

Han's eyes
narrowed. "You believe. Why?"

"I was warned
that the Emperor might try to take them."

"You were,
hunh?" Suspicion of Vader overwhelmed all Han's other thoughts and
emotions.
"That's real convenient. Look, Vader," he threatened, "I better
not find out you were involved in this. If you're pulling some kind of
double
agent stunt ... If Leia or Luke get hurt because of you, I'll kill you.
You may
have your godsdamned Force protecting you, but I'll find some way to
kill you
anyway. That's a promise."

In a cold
voice,
Vader said, "fortunately, General, you will have no need to put your
threat into practice. We both have children who are in danger. I
suggest we
forgo any argument, and take action to help them."

Han's mouth
dropped
open. "We both -- Then you know? That Leia's -- But she only just found
out!"

"As you have
no doubt heard remarked before," Vader said dryly, "the Force is
strong in our family. Already I can feel their power growing. I should
warn
you, General Solo, they will be something of a handful. Your next
seventeen
years or so will not be particularly restful."

"No change
there," Han muttered. "It's okay," he went on bravely. "We
can handle it. And Luke and Chewie have already volunteered to babysit."

"You may add
me to your list of volunteers," offered the Dark Lord of the Sith.
"However, at the moment our first duty is to rescue our family."

Han eyed him
warily
for a moment, then sighed. "Okay. How do you know they're being taken
to
Coruscant?"

There was a
long
pause, then Vader said in a gloomy tone, "Obi Wan Kenobi warned me
tonight
that Palpatine would strike at them."

"I was not
pleased to hear from him either. However, in this instance I believe we
may
safely assume that he is correct."

Han objected,
"but, he didn't say it was Coruscant they'd be taken to ... ?" He
couldn't believe he was having this conversation. He couldn't believe
he was
accepting the idea of warnings from men long dead. Damn it, why did he
hang
around with this family? The whole lot of them were out of their minds.
And the
more time he spent with them, the crazier he got.

Vader told him,
"I will attempt to contact their minds, and see if I can receive any
images of their location. In the meantime, Coruscant seems to be a
reasonable
assumption. I would rather seek for them there than sit here doing
nothing."

Ten minutes
later
Han rejoined Vader in the hangar building, accompanied by a grumpy but
resigned
newly-awakened Chewbacca. The Wookiee gave a perfunctory snarl of
dislike as
they approached Darth Vader, then he trudged up the Millennium
Falcon's boarding ramp to
start the pre-flight checkups.

Han lingered
below,
observing with interest the conversation in progress between Vader and
another
ex-Imperial, General Veers. Veers, at most times an aggressively self
confident
man, was tonight looking decidedly uncomfortable. He seemed almost ill,
and Han
guessed this was probably the result of his titanic efforts not to
appear
intimidated by Darth Vader.

Veers was
reporting, "we've identified the man as Monis Rasha, from Gasharna.
He's
known to have worked as an arms dealer and smuggler. A few minor
brushes with
the law, two brief periods of imprisonment for assault, on Balas and on
Carsandor. He reached the base on board the Nullifier, My Lord."

Vader repeated
quietly, but in a voice that did nothing to ease Veers' distress, "on
board the Nullifier?"

"Yes, My
Lord," Veers replied. "He seems to have taken advantage of our
troops' ground action on Phados, three days ago. It appears that during
the
conflict --"

The General's
mouth
had apparently gone dry. He swallowed, looking disconcerted at having
to make
such an acknowledgement of his nervousness. "Rasha ambushed one of our
troopers and took his place on the transport when it returned to the Nullifier. When he was
captured, Rasha was wearing the uniform of Trooper Konar Eldias."

"I see,"
mused Vader. "My would-be assassins are becoming more imaginative. If
no
more skilful. You were in command of the action on Phados, General
Veers?"

"Yes, My
Lord," said Veers, and Han couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Han had
never liked Veers, he'd always seemed to be a hard-assed son of a
bitch. But
Han could empathise all too well with the growing desperation in Veers'
eyes.

"Very
well," said Vader. "See that inquiries are made into the fate of
Trooper Eldias. Unfortunately I do not have the time to personally
interview
Monis Rasha." Vader turned to Han. "Are you ready to depart?" he
inquired.

"Any time you
are," Han answered, trying not to grin at the startled look of relief
that
swamped Veers' face. "Are you gonna want that -- that egg thing you
live
in brought on board?"

"Thank you,
General Solo, the 'egg thing' will not be necessary. It would take too
long to
install, and we have no time to waste."

"Whatever you
say," Han shrugged. Then he noticed that Vader was holding a small
black
carrying case in his right hand. Don't stare, Han ordered
himself. He
thought, Darth Vader with a briefcase? Well, why not? Maybe
it's a
super-portable version of whatever he's got in his egg. After all, he
may be
half machine, but he's gotta eat something, doesn't
he?

Inside the
cockpit
of the Falcon, Han settled
into the pilot's seat, uneasily aware of Vader's presence
behind him. The Dark Lord had taken the seat usually occupied by Leia
when she
was on board, and the back of Han's neck was starting to crawl at the
thought
that Vader's unreadable gaze would be on him this entire trip. And he'd
thought
that Leia's perpetual bitching was bad! Gods, what wouldn't he give to
have her
here with him now, instead of her beloved father.

"How're we
doing, Chewie?" Han asked, praying that he didn't sound as jumpy as he
felt.

Chewie gave
some
basically positive roars.

"Good,
okay," said Han. Damn, did he ever hope the Falcon wouldn't act
up on
this particular voyage! He really didn't need any snide comments from
Darth
Vader about the quality of his ship.

Vader informed
them, "I've told Flight Control that we are going to Chandrila
Seven."

Chewbacca
emitted a
startled growl.

Han swung
around to
stare at their passenger. "Run that by me again?" he demanded.

"It makes
sense for us to go there," Vader explained. "As you pointed out a few
minutes ago, going to Coruscant does not. If we told them our true
destination,
we'd spend days arguing about it, and still not receive clearance.
They'd think
we were traitors -- that or, more likely, insane."

"Yeah, and
maybe they'd be right," Han muttered. He was beginning to think this
was
one of the stupidest things he'd done, in a life that was filled with
impressively stupid deeds. Willingly shutting himself up in an enclosed
space
with the Dark Lord of the Sith, and now, setting off with him for the
headquarters
of the Empire, without telling anyone where they were going. Just
great. Han
didn't think he could be any more self-destructive if he tried.

Chewbacca
snarled
an objection along the same lines.

Vader said,
"in your place, I would not trust me either. But, General, what have
you
got to lose? Even if I am betraying you, you still have to find Leia.
Whether
you accompany me as fellow rescuer or as prisoner, you will still have
a better
chance to help her than by sitting here on Omean." There was a pause,
then
Vader added insidiously, "when Leia rescued you from Jabba the Hutt,
was
she deterred by the knowledge that she was walking into a trap?"

Han turned back
to
the forward viewscreen and scowled at it as if he expected it to
provide him
with an answer.

"Shit,"
he said emphatically.

"Once we have
left the planet, we can inform Mon Mothma of our change of plans,"
Vader
told him. When Han made no reply, the Dark Lord snapped, "I don't know
what you're worried about. If I do betray you,
you can just do
something heroic and save the day as usual. Don't tell me you've lost
your
touch since the days when you had the Imperial Fleet chasing about the
Galaxy
after you."

With an effort,
Han
restrained the automatic competitive response that he knew Vader wanted
him to
make. He said glumly, "I'd rather not have to find out."

"You
won't," said Darth Vader, in a voice of surprising sincerity. "I am
not betraying you. All I want is to find my children."

Chewie gave
vent to
a plaintive-sounding howl.

Han flung up
his
hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay.
What the hell. Off we go to Chandrila Fucking Seven, via Coruscant."

He forced
himself
not to observe out loud that he had a bad feeling about this. But he
did have a
bad feeling, all the same.

Leia woke up
aching
and cold. She tried to sit up, and found that her hands were fastened
together
in front of her. Awkwardly, she elbowed herself to a sitting position,
blinking
around at her dimly-lit surroundings.

The first thing
her
gaze focused on was Luke. He was apparently still unconscious, and
seemed, at
first glance, to be floating a foot or so above floor level. Looking
closer,
Leia realised that he was hooked into a suspendor unit. Her numbed
limbs
protesting as she did so, she inched closer to him, to see if she could
release
him from the suspended animation.

These
plastisteel,
coffin-like containers with their internal forcefields were usually
operated
from a control panel at one end. Leia found this unit's panel, on one
side
wall, just below the level of Luke's head. But to her chagrin, she saw
that it
provided only read-outs. She could find no way to adjust the
suspendor's
status. The controls must be operated by a remote, probably kept
securely in
the possession of their captor. With a quiet, dispirited oath, Leia
leaned
against the suspendor's clear surface, looking through it into her
brother's
face.

They were on
board
a ship, and in mid-flight. She could tell that from the almost
unnoticeable
background noises, and the subtle vibrations of the ship's engines. She
wasn't
sure if they were in Hyperspace or not. Han would have been able to
tell in a
second, she reflected unhappily. She wondered if Han knew yet what had
happened
to her and Luke.

What had happened to
them?

Obviously
someone
had captured them. But why? And for whom?

At least Luke
was
only in a suspendor, not frozen in carbonite. So he'd be spared from
hibernation sickness, that was something to be thankful for. She
frowned at the
train of thought that carbonite suggested to her. Vader, she
remembered, had
wanted Luke put in carbonite so he'd have no chance to escape while
being
transported to the Emperor. Leia shivered, wondering if Palpatine was
behind
their kidnapping. It was a reasonable assumption. Vader had, after all,
just
warned them to expect some attack from Palpatine. Of course, they had
no
shortage of enemies. It could be anyone, really -- some revengeful
associate of
Jabba the Hutt, an entrepreneur who simply wanted to hold them for
ransom. Or
-- it could be the Emperor. The fear of that possibility clutched icily
at her.

She tried to
fight
it off, and focused instead on feeling offended that only Luke had been
considered enough of a threat to warrant suspended animation. She wasn't seen as
any
danger to her captors, obviously. Just a harmless little girl, not like
her
brother the all-powerful Jedi.

Well,
and whose
fault is that? she asked herself angrily. She could have been
training with the
Force all this past year, but oh no, she didn't need any of that Jedi
nonsense,
did she? Or more to the point, she hadn't been willing to face it.

Knowing it was
a
useless gesture, but unwilling to sit there doing nothing, Leia
struggled to
her feet, using Luke's suspendor unit to help pull herself up. The
ceiling of
the room they were in came to just above her head; a taller prisoner
would not
have been able to stand upright. She looked around at the storage units
embedded in the room's wall. Clearly, a cargo hold, though at the
moment she
and Luke seemed to be the only cargo. A few metres from the suspendor
unit,
fissures in the wall seemed to indicate the outline of a door. She
limped over
to it. Again there were no controls visible. Of course, why would cargo
want to
get out? Leia swore at the door, thinking how easily Luke or Vader
would have
been able to open it with their thoughts. Was there any point in trying
to open
it herself, or would her negative thinking just get in the way?

She closed her
eyes, trying to remember the random bits of advice Luke had
occasionally given
her on how to tune in to the Force. You had to be calm, she knew that.
Free
from worldly concerns. Yeah, right, that sounded likely. No fear, no
anger ...
She tried to calm her thoughts, to think only of that door, only of it
opening.

A surging
feeling
of nausea jolted her out of her brief attempt. Her eyes snapped open
again, and
her vision swam dizzily. She fell back against the unresponsive door,
then
suddenly she doubled over. Before she could even attempt to stop it,
she was
vomiting onto the cargo hold's floor.

Leia groaned
and
squeezed her eyes shut again, not moving from her huddled-over
position. Her
nausea seemed gone for the moment; at least it had been mercifully
quick.
Cautiously Leia opened her eyes and straightened up. There was another
brief
twinge of nausea, but nothing more. With distaste she stepped away from
the
small pool of vomit she'd created, thinking, wonderful. Now
I'm going to
have to smell that for the rest of this trip. She wondered if
this was her
first bout of morning sickness -- terrific timing, if it was -- or just
a
reaction to whatever that gas was that had knocked her out. Achingly,
she sat
down again, next to Luke.

She thought, if
it's morning sickness, I'll probably spend the rest of the voyage
puking. What
a delightful concept. Actually, she
almost hoped she would. It would serve
their abductor right, to get vomit all over his or her damned ship. She
smiled
sadly, thinking that Arin Pellar would probably like that idea. It
would appeal
to his sense of humour.

Leia's throat
tightened, this time with the pain of held-back sobs. She refused to
think of
Arin in the past tense. He still existed somewhere, she had to believe
that.
She wouldn't let herself consider that he might not. Leia had lost too
many
friends and loved ones. If she didn't cling to the conviction that they
still
existed, somehow, she wouldn't be able to stay sane.

Anyway, she had
proof of life after death, didn't she? Obi Wan Kenobi had dropped by
for a
friendly little chat with her father. And she certainly wasn't going to
believe
that only Jedi could do that. After all, the Force was supposed to be
in
everyone. She sighed, wishing that a ghostly Arin would turn up to keep
her
company. He'd be glowing blue, she guessed, like Luke said Obi Wan was
when the
old Jedi appeared to him.

What had Obi
Wan
and Vader talked about, she wondered. How did one maintain a civil
conversation
with one's murderer? Or, for that matter, with a man that one had
killed?

She raised her
hands toward her face, scowling at the metal restraints that clasped
them together
at the wrists. Even more intolerable than the fact that her captor
didn't think
she was dangerous, was the knowledge that he -- or she, or it -- was
probably
right. It was infuriating to realise how easily her brother or father
would
have been able to get out of this. And here she was, just sitting like
a lump,
waiting for things to get worse.

There had to be
something she could do.
Could she get out of the restraints? She studied them, seeing that they
were
sealed electronically, so using one of her hairpins to pick the lock
was
definitely out. Maybe, just maybe she could use the Force to open the
cuffs, if
she could only think positively about it. But then what? Another try at
opening
the door? She thought, perhaps there might be something in the storage
units
that would help her open it, if she couldn't get the Force to work for
her.
Feeling slightly more hopeful now, she made her way over to the wall
units.
They seemed to be opened by the one square button next to each of them,
not by
the famous remote. Probably a bad sign, she thought gloomily. If their
abductor
had left the units easily openable, then almost certainly there'd be
nothing in
them. But she still had to check. She reached out her hands to the
nearest of
the opening buttons. As she pushed it, a metre-square bin slid out of
the wall.

Empty. Of
course.
Aware that it was entirely pointless, she repeated the process for each
of the
wall units. With the same results.

So what did
that
leave? She could try the Force again, she supposed, both on her
handcuffs and
on the door. She didn't have much to lose. Leia sank down once more
against the
last of the wall units, and stared at the hand-restraints. What was she
supposed to do?

She smiled
without
humour, remembering an annoying expression of Luke's. He was very fond
of
advising, "don't try, just do it or don't do it". Great. How useful.

Leia took a
deep
breath, struggling to exorcise the sarcastic thoughts from her mind.
She
reminded herself that at first, Luke hadn't believed in this either.
But he'd
made it work. He'd broken through his disbelief, and surely she could
too.

Luke! she thought. How
do I do this? Please, help me!

Think
of the
restraints. Empty your mind of everything else. Just feel the
restraints, feel
them opening.

She wasn't sure
if
those were her thoughts or Luke's, but it didn't matter. Leia closed
her eyes,
still seeing the restraints gleaming behind her eyelids. She thought
only of
them, imagining how it would feel when they snapped open and slipped
off of her
wrists ...

Some time later
she
realised she was starting to sweat, and she was shaking. But the
restraints
were still there. She cried out in anger and opened her eyes, flinging
all
thoughts of the Force away from her. "Don't try, just do it or don't do
it"? Well, she had not done it. It had been crazy of her to imagine
that
she could.

It was taking
all
her determination to stop herself from sobbing. Oh gods, she hated
being
helpless. There was nothing she hated more.

But, she
thought,
there was one thing that had worked for her
before. She thought back to
Bespin, when Luke's plea for help had sounded clearly in her mind. Of
course,
she had only heard him then, she hadn't sent any message herself. But
if she
really tried -- yes, damn it, tried, never mind
"do it or
don't do it" -- maybe someone would hear her.

Someone? Luke
wasn't in a position to rescue anyone.

Which left only
their father.

How could she
possibly ask Darth Vader for help?

She shuddered.
She
was being stupid. Vader had tried to save them from this. She tried to
tell
herself that it didn't matter who he was, or what he had done. He still
cared
about them. He would help them, if he could.

But she
couldn't
bear the thought of turning to him. If she did, wouldn't that make a
mockery of
everything she'd fought for? She thought of her other parents, dead
with
Alderaan, and of the Jedi, massacred in their thousands, and of all the
countless victims of the Empire. How could she turn to their murderer?
How
could she?

Leia,
you are an
idiot, she thought fiercely. Stop
snivelling, and try to contact your
father. You'll have time enough for moral dilemmas once he's rescued
you.

This time she
didn't bother to try wiping the anger from her mind. She was furious --
at
Vader, at herself, at Arin Pellar's murderer. She didn't care if the
anger was
wrong. She cried out, with all her being, Lord Vader! Help
us! I need your
help. I need you. Please, help me!

All her senses
were
open, begging for some response.

At first she
couldn't tell what had changed. Then she gasped, as a wave of other
emotions
hit her. There was still anger, and fear. But both were sharper,
charged with
desperation. Despair and loss tore at her. And betrayal. She felt sick
with the
intensity of it. Everything she cared about had been stolen from her,
by the
person she loved most.

A tiny portion
of
her realised that these were not her own emotions. But it made no
difference.
The pain was as horrible as if they were hers.

The scene
before
her suddenly changed. She was no longer in the murky cargo hold. She
was in a
different ship, maybe an x-wing, and she was at the controls.

But something
was
very wrong.

She couldn't
get
the ship to obey her. The connections between her brain, and her hand
on the
controls, seemed fogged, by her emotions and by pain. Nothing was
working. She
yelled out something, she didn't know what. The ship was diving, with
horrible
speed, toward a rapidly approaching ground. No, not ground. A building.
She
knew she should do something, try to pull the ship up, but suddenly,
she didn't
care. A smile even touched her face. I guess that's one
answer, she thought. A
couple more seconds and it won't matter any more.

The ship
plunged
into the building like a javelin. The last thing Leia saw clearly was
her hand,
clutched with desperate tightness around the steering rod. Only, she
thought,
it didn't look like her hand. It looked like a man's hand instead, and
it was
covered with blood.

She thought, whose
eyes am I seeing through?

Then the
question,
and everything else, vanished in a vast surge of heat and light and
sound.

She must have
lost
consciousness. When it drifted back, something was wrong with her
sight. Only
one eye seemed to be working. With that eye, she saw a crazy vista that
looked
like a work of modern art. Everything was illuminated by a cold, bright
light,
probably from some sort of floodlight. Shattered glass, a few shards of
what
must have been the cockpit's forward window, hung precariously in
place,
framing the picture. Beyond them were mountains of rubble, out of which
rose
one lone wall, pathetic in its isolation. And beyond that, sky. Black
sky, with
stars, only slightly obscured by the lights of the city and by the
nearer glows
of the floodlight, and flames. She wondered how the sky could look so
ordinary,
when she was dying.

No,
I'm not
dying, she tried to tell herself. It's not
me, it's someone else, someman --But
it felt so real. And she was so afraid ...

She was
trapped.
She could tell there was no chance of her moving. Something was pushing
down on
her from behind, and in front, she must be smashed against something --
probably the control panel itself. She probably couldn't have moved,
even if
she were not pinned into the cockpit. Pain was everywhere, but it was
so
all-encompassing that it seemed almost irrelevant. Much stronger than
the pain
was the fear.

She thought,
the
babies! In her terror, she lost her last grasp on the
conviction that all this
was happening to someone else. The babies were going to die with her,
if they
weren't already gone. She wondered wildly if they could be taken from
her, and
brought to term in an incubator. Was it too early for that to succeed?
She
knew, logically, that they barely even existed yet. But she still
couldn't
stand the thought of them dying, before they'd had any chance to live.
She
started crying, and she realised her face must be wounded or burned,
for the
salt of her tears searing across her face almost made her faint from
pain.

She could hear
people's voices -- shouting, swearing. They had to help her. She had to
tell
them about the babies. Even if they couldn't save her life, maybe the
children
still had a chance. She tried to yell for help, but her voice made no
response.
There was only a small, bubbling cough, and a hot viscous liquid
trickling over
her mouth.

Something
landed on
her face. She couldn't tell what it was, some sort of gooey substance.
Some of
it splashed into her one good eye, obscuring her vision completely,
then with
excruciating slowness it started trickling out again. More of the stuff
was
burning at her face, worse than the tears. She choked as it oozed into
her
mouth and her nose. With a shock, she realised she still had her sense
of
smell. A harsh, antiseptic smell that must belong to the oozing stuff
overwhelmed her, then the stuff started seeping away again, and its
smell was
slowly joined by the odours of smoke, and burned flesh, and burned
plastic and
fabric, and blood.

She noticed,
vaguely, that someone was talking to her. Oh, thank the gods! They knew she
was
still alive. They would help her, help the babies. Someone was holding
her,
wiping the horrible oozing stuff off her face. A woman's voice, shaking
with
strain, commanded her, "don't you slip away. Look at me. Don't you dare die on me
now." Leia tried to obey, but the woman's face kept swimming out of
focus.
Leia struggled to make her mouth form words. She had to let the woman
know she
was pregnant. But there was still nothing. Only the horror of more
blood
leaking out of her mouth, and a gurgling, twisting wheeze when she
tried to
take a deeper breath. Leia could feel herself sinking. She wasn't going
to make
it, and the children weren't either. Oh, gods! And she wasn't going to
see Han
again, ever! The woman was speaking to her again, saying something
urgently,
but Leia couldn't keep her attention on it. Her focus had drifted over
to
another set of voices, somewhere nearby. She could hear a man's voice,
saying,
"we have an identification of the pilot."

Another man
answered, "good, so who is it?"

The first man
sounded miserable. He said, "it's hard to believe. We had it
double-checked, but the ID is absolutely positive."

"Spit it out,
man! Who is it?"

"Anakin
Skywalker."

Without
warning,
Leia's voice returned. She screamed. She kept screaming until her
throat was
raw.

Then she
realised
that the rawness was the only pain she felt.

She gasped,
blinking desperately in the sudden darkness. She couldn't smell the
smoke or
the blood. Her breaths were ragged but unimpeded. Her eyesight was
coming back,
and she saw, first, her hands clasped in front of her, held together by
the
dull coppery gleam of the handcuffs. Then, beyond, the dim cargo hold,
lit only
by a faint bank of lights along the tops of the walls, and in the
distance,
Luke, seeming to float in nothingness.

Anakin
Skywalker? Oh, my gods, what did I just see?

Wave after wave
of
shuddering seized her. She wanted to cry, but she was too afraid.Something
brushed
against her mind, the faintest hint of another presence. She couldn't
feel
anyone else's emotions now, only the sensation that something, someone,
was
trying to speak to her.